Winning Research Skills - Westlaw

Chapter 3
State constitutions contain provisions that parallel most of the fundamental rights guaranteed by
the U.S. Constitution. There is an interrelationship between a state’s constitution and the U.S.
Constitution. In some areas of the law, such as an individual’s right to privacy, the protection
offered by a state constitution may exceed what has been held to be available under the U.S.
Constitution. State constitutions can usually be found in the printed state codes. On Westlaw,
the constitutions for most states are available in the state statutes databases.
Court Rules
Court rules guide the operation of courts. Court rules typically cover such matters as forum
selection, commencing an action, pleadings, discovery, jury selection, the trial, and the
judgment. The various federal court rules may be found in a variety of practitioners’ manuals,
rules services, and formbooks.
Among the most accessible sources of court rules are the USCA special volumes accompanying
title 28, Judiciary and Judicial Procedure, and title 18, Crimes and Criminal Procedure, which
contain the federal court rules, including the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Criminal
Procedure, Appellate Procedure, and Evidence.
On Westlaw, the Federal Rules database (US-RULES) contains rules from the USCA. State court
rules are found in databases with the identifier XX-RULES, where XX is a state’s two-letter
postal abbreviation, e.g., FL-RULES.
Conclusion
This chapter explained how to find federal laws as they are passed by Congress and organized
into the federal code. We discussed several legislative document publication formats, each of
which is suited to a different purpose. We also touched on state legislative materials,
constitutions, and court rules. Although you may not need to perform much legislative research
during your first year of law school, the information in this chapter will come in handy in upperlevel
courses and as you begin to practice.
40 Winning Research Skills